A Royal Kiss & Tell

by Julia London

  Isidora steadily held his gaze, but Jacleen looked to the floor. And Bobbin looked frantically at his sister. How old was he? Seven? Eight?

  “So that’s the way of it,” Leo said flatly, inexplicably annoyed with them. “I am a prince of Alucia. Has that escaped your attention? I have a certain amount of power and integrity.”

  “But...but what can you do, milord?” asked Isidora. “If we speak, they’ll send us home and they’ll find us there. They’ll find our families—”

  “No,” Leo said firmly, holding up a hand. “They will not.” God, he hoped he was right about this. “Is this the life you want?” he asked Jacleen. “Is this what you want for your Bobbin? I thought you were relieved to flee Arundel.”

  She flushed. “Aye,” she whispered, and wrapped a protective arm around the boy.

  “And you, Isidora? Were you not relieved to leave Mrs. Mansfield’s den?”

  She quickly nodded her head and took a small step backward.

  “More important, ladies, do you want other young women—or children,” he added, gesturing to Bobbin, “to discover what awaits them in England?”

  “No,” Isidora muttered.

  Leo rubbed his nape. He looked at them again and said solemnly, “I understand. I know I’m not the prince you want to come to your rescue. I am not a hero. And I have a certain reputation that should not recommend me to any part of society.”

  Jacleen nodded along as if that was fact.

  “But you have my word that you and your families will be protected. If you don’t believe me, then believe my brother.”

  Isidora perked up. “Prince Sebastian?”

  “Je, Prince Sebastian,” Leo said. “He will assure you are all protected. But you must help me. What has happened to you is an abomination, and those responsible must be held accountable. Such a despicable practice can’t be allowed to continue, and the only way to end it is to bring down the men who have arranged it. We, my brother and I, will need your cooperation.”

  The women looked at each other.

  “Do we have it?” Leo asked.

  “Aye, Your Highness,” Isidora said, and looked starkly at the other two, as if daring one of them to argue.

  After a suitable amount of silence, Leo nodded. “But I must find a way to free Rasa, and even then, we won’t leave without Eowyn and Nina. How do I find them?”

  “Mrs. Brown,” Jacleen said.

  “Who is Mrs. Brown?”

  “The cook, Your Highness.”

  “Whose cook?” Leo asked, confused.

  “She’s the cook here, Highness. She’s the one who readies them to send.”

  A wave of nausea went through Leo before he even understood. Something in the back of his mind told him he was the biggest fool to have ever lived. “What, here? Mrs. Brown readies women from Wesloria—”

  “And Alucia,” Isidora interjected.

  “And Alucia?” he asked, in spite of the answer already forming in his head. “When you say she readies them...”

  “To be sold,” Jacleen said flatly.

  Leo felt himself sinking down onto a chair at the table. He stared at them in disbelief. “Are you telling me, then, that women who have been sold to English gentlemen come through this house?”

  The women stared at him. Isidora said, “We thought you knew. You brought us back here. We thought...” She looked at Jacleen. “We thought we were to be sold again.”

  Cressidian, that bloody bastard. No wonder he was as rich as he was—he was a double-dealing scoundrel. Leo suddenly saw it all very clearly—the women, sold by their parents, were brought here, where Cressidian sent them out to the homes of influential gentlemen in exchange for a friendly vote or what have you. And Leo, the hero in this tale, had brought them right back into the place that had sold them to begin with.

  He wasn’t a knight in shining armor to them—he was just another man who would use them.

  “Well then,” he said. “We need to get you out of here, don’t we? Ladies, Bobbin, gather what things you have. We’re leaving.”

  “Where are we going?” Jacleen asked.

  Leo laughed wryly to the ceiling. “An excellent question. I haven’t quite worked it out yet, but you’ll not stay another moment in this house.”

  * * *

  IT WAS SURPRISINGLY easy to leave with the women. The butler seemed unfazed when Artur and Kadro entered the house and escorted the two women and the boy out to the waiting coach. Leo joined them in the coach and sat on the bench opposite the two women and the boy squeezed onto one bench. He thought about pointing out they’d be more comfortable if one of them sat next to him, but he had a feeling that none of them wanted to be very close to him.

  He didn’t blame them. Men like him must haunt their dreams now.

  “Where to, Highness?” Artur asked through the open door.

  Leo needed time to think. He looked at Bobbin. “Have you seen the park? No? You should.” He instructed Artur to drive them around Hyde Park while he frantically thought what to do.

  But after two trips around the park, and another half hour where he commanded the carriage be brought to a halt and had all of them step out and take some air, Leo had no better idea what to do with them.

  It was likewise clear that Isidora and Jacleen knew he had no idea what to do. They kept exchanging glances, then leaning forward to look out the window, as if trying to find their bearings. They were thinking of escape.

  “Don’t fret,” he said softly. He needed help. He knew only one person whom he might trust to help him. He pulled down the trap door that covered a funnel that went up to the driver’s box. “Twenty-two Upper Brook Street,” he commanded.

  When the coach pulled up in front of the mansion, Leo told the women to wait. “It might a bit of a wait, I’m afraid, but please, do not leave this coach.”

  Isidora nodded, and he hoped that meant they had agreed to give him a chance.

  He asked Kadro to see to it that no one left the coach, before walking up to the front door.

  Leo was not himself. It was as if part of his brain was trying to wrangle all the facts and place them into a semblance of order, while another part of his brain attempted to look reasonable and present and, most important, not hapless or frantic. It was the frantic that had him feeling at sixes and sevens.

  But when he walked into the salon and saw Caroline sitting on the settee in a cloud of cream and white, another part of his brain pushed the rest of it aside. His heart quickened and he felt relief.

  Caroline stood and gave him a tight smile as she curtsied. She seemed guarded. Uncertain.

  It was then that he noticed Beck, who stood from behind a desk and came striding forward, his hand extended. “Your Royal Highness Prince Leopold,” he said jovially. “Garrett, we’ll have that tea, then. Leo, you are looking well!”

  “Thank you—”

  “You’ve come just in time. I’ve been returned to London only a day, and this one,” he said, gesturing at his sister, “has just now graced me with her presence.”

  Caroline said nothing and resumed her seat.

  “She’s not speaking because she knows that, for one, I’ve seen invoices for more bolts of cloth,” Beck said. “Why is it that ladies will not be satisfied with a pair of serviceable dresses?” he complained. “And two, that I’ve heard what occurred at the Debridges’ while I was away.”

  Perhaps that was the reason she appeared so chary.

  “Leo, whisky?” Beck asked, and Leo realized that he’d been gazing at Caroline and hadn’t noticed that Beck had moved to the sideboard.

  “Pardon? No, thank you,” Leo said.

  “No? What has happened to you, man?” He poured himself a generous whisky, then turned to face the two of them again, Caroline on the settee, Leo still standing just inside the door. Beck pointed his glass at
Caroline and said to Leo, “She’s spurned my friend Ladley.”

  Caroline frowned at her brother. “I warned you.”

  “But I don’t see why. He’s a good man. You can’t keep turning away all the good men, Caro,” Beck said impatiently, and to Leo, “Can you imagine, Leo, what our poor parents would say if they knew I’d allowed her to remain unmarried for so long?”

  “Allowed me?”

  Leo didn’t have time for the bickering, and apparently neither did Caroline. She suddenly stood and went to the window to peer out. She seemed unusually restless.

  Beck looked at her and shrugged, then turned his attention to Leo. “You, my friend, missed a spectacular horse race,” he said, and launched eagerly into telling Leo of how his Alucian racehorse had performed at Four Corners. The telling took some time, however, as Hawke was determined not to leave out a single detail. Leo made all the appropriate remarks, but he realized that he wasn’t listening at all. The butler wheeled in the tea, and Beck craned his neck to see around him, still talking. Tea was served, and Leo realized he was gripping one hand tighter and tighter until he had a fist worthy of a blow to Beck’s mouth if he didn’t stop talking.

  “Caro, the tea,” Beck reminded her, and Caroline came back from the window and accepted a cup from Garrett.

  “I’ve the race results,” Hawke said, and patted down his chest, as if he’d pinned them there. “Where are they? They must be in the study. Excuse me,” he said, and strode out of the salon.

  Leo put down his teacup and looked at Caroline. “What is the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It’s not nothing, clearly.”

  She glanced across the room. Garrett was standing patiently at the door. “I need to talk to you,” she said softly.

  “And I desperately need to talk to you,” he murmured.

  “Here they are!” Beck had returned and was waving a piece of paper in his hand. “You’ll be as proud when you see how the Alucian horse fared.” He sat next to Leo and proceeded to go over the race times of all the horses entered in the race.

  Caroline put down her teacup. “Beck, darling, aren’t you forgetting? You’re to dine with Lord Ainsley this evening and ascertain if he intends to offer for my hand.”

  Beck started. “Good Lord, I am. Thank you, Caro. Leo, will you please excuse me?” he said. “The time got away from me. My apologies, Leo. I got a bit carried away. Caro, you’ll see the prince out, will you?” Beck asked as he came to his feet.

  “Garrett!” Beck called, striding from the room. “Send Jones to me! I don’t want to be late!”

  When he’d gone, and the butler with him, Caroline said, “Have you ever in your life known someone more obsessed with horses?” She abruptly stood from the settee and went to the window.

  Leo did, too. He didn’t know how to broach this delicate situation with her. “Looking for someone?” he asked, peering out the window. He could just see the top of his coach.

  Caroline turned around and leaned up against the window frame.

  “Caroline, I—”

  “May I ask you something?” she interrupted.

  “Je, of course.”

  “I’ve heard you’re returning to Alucia quite soon. Is that true?”

  He’d long since learned not to question how things were known about him. They simply were. “Who told you so?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “No, but I—”

  “Is it true?”

  He stared into her shining green eyes and tried to find words. There were so many bloody emotions bubbling in him. Emotions he needed a drink to dull, but alas, had foregone the opportunity. “Je. It can’t be avoided.”

  Something flickered in her eyes. It was like the flame of a candle sputtering out.

  “You knew I would return eventually.”

  “Yes. But I thought it would be the end of summer.” She bit her lip and looked down at the floor.

  Her reaction was disconcerting. There was one thing about Caroline Hawke he could entirely depend upon—she was not afraid to let him know exactly where she stood or what she thought. She never looked sad. Leo dipped his head to see her face. “I will mourn you. Every day.”

  She glanced up.

  “You don’t believe me? Oh, but I will mourn you more than you know, Caroline. I’ve come to depend on your company.”

  “Really?” Caroline asked softly. There was a different light in her eyes now. They were both dull and shiny. She was looking at him through unshed tears.

  “Very much,” he said earnestly and shifted closer to her.

  “May I ask you something else?”

  Je, I love you, Caroline. I love you. “Ask me anything. What is it you want to know?”

  “Don’t lie to me, I beg you. Do you plot with the Weslorians to overthrow your father?”

  He couldn’t have been more stunned than if she’d slapped him. “W-what?”

  “Are they spies? Have they come here to plot with you? For the life of me, I don’t understand, and I’ve tried, but nothing makes sense.”

  “Has who come? What spies? What the devil are you talking about?”

  “The maids!” she whispered loudly, and looked toward the open door.

  He stared at her, trying to make sense of this. “Are you asking me if the maids are spies? That is absurd.”

  “Then why, Leopold? What have you done with them? They’re Weslorian, aren’t they? And you took them and where are they now?”

  He blanched as all plausible explanations went out of his head. Bloody hell, he wished for a vat of whisky just now. Something to dull this discomfort. But he was not that man anymore. He hadn’t been that man since he met Lysander in the garden. “I will admit to being many things, but I am not a traitor. Christ Almighty, you think I’d plot to overthrow my own father?”

  “Then please explain it to me,” she begged him.

  Leo was torn by this request—he did love Caroline, and he wanted to protect her from knowing what evil there was in this world. She was light, she was happiness and he would prefer the ugliness not touch her. But it was more than that. He didn’t want her to look at him with pity. To see what he suspected she and everyone else knew—that he was a prince with no true talent other than drinking. That he was on a mission that was impossible for someone like him. That he was so bad at it that he now had to ask for her considerable help.

  But his reluctance to speak caused her to jump to conclusions of her own. “Dear God, it’s worse than I thought.”

  “No, Caroline, no,” he said, lifting his head. “The women—girls, really, these maids—are not spies. They are slaves. And I’ve been trying—bungling, really—to free them.”

  She stared at him. “Slaves?”

  Leo nodded.

  “Where are they?”

  “At present, they are just outside, in the coach.”

  Her mouth parted with her shock. “Here?”

  He put his hand on her elbow. “Please sit and allow me to explain.”

  He told her everything. It felt good to say it to someone, to tell another living soul how he’d been waylaid in Helenamar, then given this list of names. To describe how difficult it had been for him to find these women quite on his own. That as a prince, he wasn’t inconspicuous. And that as a prince, he’d discovered he was ignorant of the ways of the world. He told her how he’d made such a mess of things that he’d bought a castle, was paying blackmail to an Alucian businessman who had double-crossed him, had exposed an old friend for the scoundrel he was, and had rescued, quite unexpectedly, a young boy along with the women.

  And of course, the crowning detail—that the Weslorian gentleman involved in this scheme was his future father-in-law.

  Caroline had turned pale by the time he’d finished. “What are you going to do?”

&nb
sp; “I plan to take the Weslorian women to Helenamar with me and have them speak out against the men who did this to them.”

  “But what about your engagement? Won’t your father be angry?”

  His father would be livid, of that, Leo was certain. “Possibly. Probably. I don’t know what all will happen, Caroline. All I know is that I am determined to take these women to Alucia and have them speak against the men who had bought and sold them for political favors. I intend to expose them, the consequences be damned.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, and then her eyes began to well with tears.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, reaching for her hand.

  “Those poor women. And you, Leopold. What a noble thing you’re doing, and yet everyone thinks...they assume...”

  “I know what they assume. I’m not noble, I happen to be in a unique position, that’s all. Do you believe me?”

  “I do.” She sniffed back a tear. “The Duchess of Norfolk told me about her husband. I never dreamed there were more women like that poor girl. But Leopold, what of your reputation? It’s all but ruined, and I...oh Lord, how I regret it! I helped it along. I gave Hollis gossip to print—”

  He squeezed her hand. “Darling Caroline, think nothing of it. My reputation was not a grand one to begin.”

  She shook her head and looked away from him for a moment. “You said there are more women?”

  He nodded. “I know of one in the Pennybacker house. The other two... I’ve not yet discovered where they’ve gone.”

  Caroline gasped. She squeezed his hand. “You must attend the Pennybacker ball, Leopold. That was all my doing, and I will undo it. Nancy Pennybacker can be persuaded, I am certain. Leave it to me. You will accompany Beck and me. Beck swears he won’t attend, that balls are a colossal waste of time, but I know he will if you come.”

  “Caroline...” Leopold was so moved in that moment, that she would want to help him in this, that he leaned across the space between them, put his hand to her nape and kissed her.

  She pushed back. “Garrett—”